Art book pre-sale plus Q & A with Publisher RD King

We are very excited to be partnering with local artist, RD King and Extended Play to create an original art book that will document all the artists that submit to our 6th Annual Juried Exhibition–Rhythm and Rush. Deadline to submit is July 15th.

We will be presenting this book to our Juror, Catherine Haggarty, as a token of our gratitude and in honor of 2017 Juror Austin Thomas‘ words at the opening of Otherworldliness when she said she “could have created 20 shows” from all the amazing work that she reviewed. It is our hope that future shows, projects and relationships will be cultivated by this book.

Individual copies will be available for purchase through Extended Play, reserve your copy here.

Below is an interview to learn a bit more of David King’s process and inspiration by GfG Studio Artist, Sibley Barlow:

What got you started in publishing?

I’m interested in the personal, one-to-one exchange between artist and viewer. A book allows you to bypass the discomfort of experiencing art in a crowd of people at an art opening or a museum show. Reading an artist book puts you alone with the work, in a personal size that you can explore at your own pace.

I’ve been collecting artist books for a long time, and follow a number of small presses based out of other cities. I felt like a small artists book press was something that Nashville needed. Nashville has a strong history of galleries and independent artist spaces, but the exhibition can only be experienced during the run of the show. A book extends a body of work into a tangible object that can be viewed indefinitely.

Adapting artwork into a book format is a creative collaboration. Reading a book is an interactive experience for the viewer, so I like to include tactile, physical elements. When I was working with Jesse Butcher, I thought about how confrontational and subversive his photography feels. I decided to make a die-cut inset area in the pages of the last third of the book, leaving a hole, as though the book were a hollow Bible. Inside this hole I embedded a second, tiny handmade book of his more intimate line drawings.

Another artist, Jessica Wohl, is currently working with textiles. I designed her book to feel like a fabric swatch book that can be opened expansively, revealing many pages simultaneously as the views of her work zoom in and out.

What are you currently excited about in your art practice?

Book publishing hits an overlap between my interest in art and my interest in rebuilding machines. This comes out in my studio practice as well, I enjoy appropriating industrial machines for creative purposes. I’ve got an industrial plastic vacuum form machine that I’ve previously used to make crisp, white, large-scale work with found objects.

Currently I’m working on a series of original toys inspired by bootleg action figures, which will be encased in original handmade packaging, complete with accessories.

Are there any contemporary artists who are influences for you?

Richard Tuttle and John Gossage are both artists with extensive bodies of work who have also pushed the boundaries of what an artist’s book can be. I’ve also been collecting bootleg toys made by artists, such as ones by Mark Todd.